LA MELANCOLIE DES DRAGONS, THE FOOL, SWIVEL SPOT and More Set for The Kitchen's Winter 2017 Season

The Kitchen, founded in 1971, has continued to serve as an important catalyst for a broad community of groundbreaking artists working across disciplines. In today's landscape, where contemporary artists and arts institutions are collaborating in new ways, and generating new contexts for the continuing evolution of multi-disciplinary art, The Kitchen, as a nimble, smaller-scale organization, plays an especially vital role: it provides emerging and established artists a hot-house environment for the presentation and discussion of their work, supporting and seeking to foster a vibrant, living dialogue among artists from every field and area of culture.

The Kitchen's Winter 2017 season, January 10-March 25, exemplifies the institution's commitment to a broad range of artists, and to collaboration and discourse among them. Opening the year, Philippe Quesne's singular La Mélancolie des dragons makes its New York debut (January 10-14), featuring a band of travelers whose car breaks down in the forest, prompting them to create a heavy-metal-themed amusement park.

Also in January, artists Cory Arcangel and Olia Lialina collaborate on their exhibition, "Asymmetrical Response" (January 11-February 18), which traces the Internet's cultural shift from a military technology to a platform for the free exchange of information, and, finally, the ambiguous "content delivery system" we know today.

And Paulina Olowska teams with choreographer Katy Pyle and composer Sergei Tcherepnin on Slavic Goddesses: A Wreath of Ceremonies (January 26-28). Once more taking up the question of feminism and cultural convention in her work, Olowska looks back to the example of early-20th-century artist Zofia Stryjenska, whose art and designs for theater were appropriated without citation by her government.

Later in the season, among new works are an opera by Raúl de Nieves and Colin Self, titled The Fool (February 9-11); Sara Magenheimer's video installation, I Collect Neglected Venoms, appearing The Kitchen's theater (February 24-March 4); and Jen Rosenblit and Geo Wyeth's collaborative dance piece, Swivel Spot, which will appear in The Kitchen's second-floor space (March 1-4).

Finally, Half Straddle presents an open work period and colloquy, Here I Go, pt. 2 (March 7-18), urgently reclaiming, in the words of director Tina Satter, "spaces, ideas, and paradigms by female-identified and informed bodies and queer bodies embodying feminist ethos."

And artist Martin Beck presents Last Night (March 23-25), a film composed of all the songs played by musical host David Mancuso at one of his final Loft parties of the 1980s. His first, on Valentine's Day, 1970, was famously titled "Love Saves the Day."

More information on The Kitchen's Winter 2017 programming is below. Tickets are available online at thekitchen.org; by phone at 212.255.5793 x11; and in person at THE KITCHEN (512 West 19th Street), Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2:00-6:00 P.M.

---

THE KITCHEN WINTER 2017 PROGRAMMING:

[THEATER]

Philippe Quesne
La Mélancolie des dragons
January 10-14, 8pm; $25

A band of longhaired, metal-heads decide that the snowy forest where their hatchback has stalled might be the perfect location to build a new heavy metal-themed amusement park. A helpful stranger is invited into their world of classic rock, medieval recorders, and large inflatable sculptures. Presented by THE KITCHEN as part of The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival.

[EXHIBITION]

Cory Arcangel and Olia Lialina
"Asymmetrical Response,"
January 11-February 18

On the eve of Y2K, Russian-born Olia Lialina-who is among the best-known participants in the 1990s net.art scene-first met American artist Cory Arcangel. Ever since, the artists have been deep in dialogue about the social and cultural impact of the Internet's historical shift from a tool for military communication to an "information superhighway" promising open and equal exchange, and, finally, the increasingly asymmetric "content delivery system" we experience today. For the first time, Arcangel and Lialina appear together, presenting complex bodies of work that arose through their continuing conversation. Curated by Caitlin Jones for Western Front, Vancouver; organized by Tim Griffin and Lumi Tan for The Kitchen.

[PERFORMANCE/DANCE]

Paulina Olowska
Slavic Goddesses-A Wreath of Ceremonies
January 26-28, 8pm; $20

Having often addressed questions of feminism and cultural convention, Olowska here revisits the work of Zofia Stryje?ska-exploring the visionary Polish artist's notion of ballet as a "wreath of ceremonies," and designing costumes after her 1918 painting series Bo?ki s?owia?skie (Slavic Deities) that was based on Slavic folklore and mythology. Ballez dancers perform choreography by Katy Pyle that personifies Stryje?ska's goddesses in solos that reactivate classic folk steps. An original score by Sergei Tcherepinin will mix cosmic sounds together with traditional Mazurkas, Polkas, and Oberkas, as well as spiritual disco. Curated by Katy Dammers and Tim Griffin.

[OPERA]

Raúl De Nieves and Colin Self
The Fool
February 9-11, 8pm; $15

The Fool is a chamber opera scored in four acts for chorus and string ensemble. The Fool is an allegorical journey drawing ante-narrative around time, beauty, communion, and mortality. The Fool is the spirit in search of experience. The Fool is both the beginning and the end, neither and otherwise, betwixt and between. The Fool is a story. Starring Colin Self as the Old Woman, Raúl De Nieves as The Fool and the Dog, Alexandra Drewchin as the Child, and Mehron Abdollmohammadi as the Mother. Organized by Matthew Lyons.

[FILM/VIDEO]

Sara Magenheimer
I Collect Neglected Venoms
February 24-March 4
Performances: February 25, 7pm; March 4, 5pm

As part of an installation in The Kitchen's theater, Sara Magenheimer presents her new video, Best is Man's Breath Quality, in which an ancient jellyfish suggests how new positions can inform our capabilities to heal. His deep-ocean vantage allows him to comment (through an authoritative voice-over) on a truer spectrum of human behavior seen up above; and his capacity for inflicting pain on human bodies finds parallels in our capacity to embody the more nebulous and unruly forces in life. With performances featuring singing and narration, Magenheimer explores how language mutates and reproduces itself in culture. Creating abstract narratives through vernacular associations, she proposes linguistic turns more empathic than expository. The human voice and sound operate as floating signifiers, addressing the body through the disembodied. Curated by Lumi Tan and Tim Griffin.

[PERFORMANCE]

Jen Rosenblit and Geo Wyeth
Swivel Spot
March 1-4, 7pm & March 2-3, 9:30pm; $20

Swivel Spot is concerned with the indiscernible moment of change. It is clear that something is gone. Actions of preservation and maintenance suggest something routine is about to happen. There is preparation here. Haunting the performance are The Remains-a skeleton of logic from something that no longer applies. Still, these things don't just go away. Hovering in this spot, an area isolated for this specific function, likened to a dump, a graveyard for parts, or a recycling shed, but we remain, there is waiting here. In a "land-space" where things go to die, rest, pile up, and accumulate, we see what we return to, Pivot on, flirt with, linger near, or even consistently resist. Can we measure or archive transformation inside of this pile, and how do we continue on without rendering it obsolete? Organized by Matthew Lyons.

[INSTALLATION]

Half Straddle
Here I go, pt. 2 of You
March 7-18

The reclamation of spaces, ideas, and paradigms by female-identified and informed bodies and queer bodies embodying feminist ethos MUST be made paramount at this moment in American Life. Half Straddle's Here I Go, pt. 2 of You is an open work period and colloquy that encompasses rehearsals and showings of new theater and video work; the launch of an online journal of performance writing; public lectures; and communal zine-making activities that will act as accessible discussion periods. Here I Go engages company members, peers, and their artistic heroes to expand critical artistic discourse to interrogate and reflect on how we codify; and to consider why various performances are made and ask what their making means at this time. Organized by Lumi Tan as part of THE KITCHEN L.A.B.

[FILM]

Martin Beck
Last Night

Last Night is based on the 118 songs played by New York musical host David Mancuso on June 2, 1984, at one of the last parties of the 99 Prince Street location of his seminal New York dance party, the Loft. The film shows each record played that night in sequence, from beginning to end, on a vintage turntable in a domestic atmosphere. The complete progression of songs lasts approximately thirteen hours, offering an intimate sonic journey that mirrors a particular night at a particular moment in time. Beginning on Valentine's Day, 1970, Mancuso regularly hosted dance parties at his home on 647 Broadway and, after the mid '70s, at 99 Prince Street. (The first was famously titled "Love Saves the Day.") What came to be known as the "Loft parties" were unique in their combination of communal atmosphere and high-quality sound, centered around music and dancing. The Loft became a legendary blueprint after which many celebrated disco-era New York clubs tried to model themselves. The Loft parties, however, retained their intimacy through being invitation-only with no commercial agenda. Curated by Tim Griffin.

---

The Kitchen is one of New York City's most forward-looking nonprofit spaces, showing innovative work by emerging and established artists across disciplines. Our programs range from dance, music, performance, and theater to video, film, and art, in addition to literary events, artists' talks, and lecture series. Since its inception in 1971, THE KITCHEN has been a powerful force in shaping the cultural landscape of this country, and has helped launch the careers of many artists who have gone on to worldwide prominence.